Every traditional publisher I talked to wanted the same deal: they promote your book for about six weeks, hand you 15 to 25% royalties, and keep your IP for life. So I walked away and built a new kind of publisher.

In this first episode, Steve J Larsen breaks down the numbers the publishing industry doesn’t advertise, and why he and Marley Jaxx built a publishing model where authors keep their IP and the book feeds the business behind it.

In this episode:

• Why Steve deleted a 50,000-word book live on social media and started over
• Half of new books from the top 10 publishers sell under 1,000 copies (BookScan)
• A $1.2 million advance backed by only $62,000 in marketing, admitted under oath in the 2022 Penguin Random House trial
• 85% of $250K advances never earn out
• How Ryan Lee sold 4,000 copies in his first week, then went from 2 or 3 sales a month to 23 to 25 with a “book flywheel”
• How a $19 book is worth $81 per buyer
• The 3 problems every author hits: how slowly books get written, no sales after launch week, and suddenly needing to learn phone sales

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:30 Deleting my first book in public
04:20 Shopping Hay House and Penguin: every one wanted my IP
07:30 Half of new books sell under 1,000 copies
08:15 $1.2M advance, $62K marketing
12:45 85% of big advances never earn out
14:50 The self-publishing street cred problem
16:00 How a $19 book becomes worth $81
17:00 A new model: authors keep their IP
18:45 From ClickFunnels to book funnels
22:00 Ryan Lee’s 4,000-copy launch and the book flywheel
26:30 The 3 problems we solve for authors
33:50 What this show is about, and how to send in your question
39:15 Why events and books capture market share
42:30 Only 35 of the top 100 author podcasts are still active

Links:
Get StageBook (use a stage to film your book before it’s written): https://stagebookbook.com
Record a question for the show: https://thewealthyauthor.com
Pursuit of Profit Publishing: https://pursuitofprofitpublishing.com

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